Signal and Backgrounds for the Single Production of Scalar and Vector Leptoquarks at the CERN LHC

We perform a detailed analysis of the potentiality of the CERN Large Hadron Collider to study the single production of leptoquarks via $pp \to e^\pm q\to$ leptoquark $\to e^\pm q$, with $e^\pm$ generated by the splitting of photons radiated by the protons. Working with the most general $SU(2)_L \otimes U(1)_Y$ invariant effective lagrangian for scalar and vector leptoquarks, we analyze in detail the leptoquark signals and backgrounds that lead to a final state containing an $e^\pm$ and a hard jet with approximately balanced transverse momenta. Our results indicate that the LHC will be able to discover leptoquarks with masses up to 2--3 TeV, depending on their type, for Yukawa couplings of the order of the electromagnetic one.